Munz: Conference USA baseball tourney won’t lack intrigue

Rice claimed the Conference USA title, while UAB and Southern Miss ended up in second and third place, respectively. Now these teams, along with five others — Middle Tennessee, Old Dominion, East Carolina, Texas-San Antonio and Florida International, in that order — make up the C-USA baseball championship field. The tournament begins Wednesday at Pete Taylor Park in Hattiesburg.

On one side of the bracket, you’ve got Rice, FIU, Middle Tennessee and Old Dominion. Considering that’s a one seed with the four, five and eight seeds, that’s pretty salty competition. All four teams have an RPI in the top 100, and both Rice and Old Dominion are in the top 50.

On the other side, there’s UAB, Southern Miss, UTSA and East Carolina. It might not be quite as strong, but looks can be deceiving. UTSA, the seven seed, brings things down a tad simply due to its 110 RPI ranking. But the Roadrunners could be one of the most dangerous teams outside the top 100 in the country. UTSA has six wins over teams inside the top 100, which is more than any team in the league aside from Rice.

Rice vs. FIU

Probably the most intriguing first-round contest is Rice versus FIU. Rice is Rice, and there’s really not much more one can add about the Owls that most people don’t already know. They’re extremely talented, and extremely well-coached.

On the other hand, FIU was well on its way to a potential NCAA Regional bid, regardless of whether or not it won the league tournament, before losing six of its last eight games of the season. But the Panthers might be the best team in the nation that finished in eighth place within its conference.

The Owls swept FIU in the regular season, putting up 10 or more runs twice on the Panthers — something that only happened four times to FIU all season.

As far as Southern Miss is concerned, the Golden Eagles hosted East Carolina just last week and took two of three from the Pirates. The only loss came in the 15-inning marathon contest.

The tournament shouldn’t be short on competition, which is exactly what you want if you’re jockeying for a potential postseason run.